It has been an honor to serve Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) as their interim SVP and Chief Information Officer for the past 7 months. At the start of 2021, I told myself I wasn’t going to do another
interim CIO engagement. But how can you say no to the #1 children’s hospital in the country? While they tell me they are grateful for what I have accomplished during this period, I too am grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to work with such fine people and be part of such an incredible mission – as they say, “Until every child is well”. I’m proud to have been part of an organization with a culture that values their staff and is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion.
From the start, BCH leadership knew I didn’t want the interim engagement to be prolonged. One of my priorities was to assist the search firm in finding the best candidate to be the next SVP and CIO. Goal accomplished! Heather Nelson starts on October 11. She has served as CIO at UChicago Medicine since 2017.
This last week before the official handoff begins, I focused on annual performance reviews for my leadership team, finishing up my work on the EHR strategy so Heather can move forward with the next phase, and compiling everything I will go over with her in our one-week transition/handoff.
Why would an interim do performance reviews? I strongly believe that people should not miss a review cycle because of a leadership transition above them that they have no control over. Collecting input from others in an informal 360 manner along with my experience working together for seven months is enough to have a constructive conversation and provide guidance on future development opportunities. Of course, Heather will need to work with each of them on specific goals for the coming year.
The EHR “path for the future” as we’ve called it has been the primary focus of my time at BCH. Working with my team and BCH leadership to develop a business case and gain alignment for the future as we looked at the current hybrid model vs a single core EHR vendor model. We reached a key milestone with the Board recently and it is good timing for Heather to pick up from here on the next phase of work.
The outline I will go over with Heather starting on Monday is extensive and I’ve carved out as much non-meeting time as possible for just the two of us to review together. It will include briefings on cybersecurity, IT governance and the Project Management Office, finances and budget involving key IT leaders with me. My outline includes a review of key projects, vendor relationships, business processes, culture, external relationships and much more. We sent her a pre-read of materials per mutual agreement that she can review in advance of her first day. Yes, the firehose has begun to flow!
This is the fourth time I’ve done a handoff as an interim CIO (one of them was as CTO) since I started down this path of interim management and consulting in early 2016. While I have a standard format and approach, each time is different given the situation and the organization. This engagement has been mostly remote, so I haven’t met all my IT leadership team in person nor all the BCH leaders I’ve partnered with. But the connections are there, and we’ve worked together effectively. I will miss the people and the organization but know they will be in great hands with their new CIO.
At StarBridge Advisors we have placed interim health IT leaders in many health systems across the country. Our interims have often been asked to consider the permanent position and some have done so. Others have assisted the permanent person with focused advisory engagements following their interim engagement. With the number of health IT leaders retiring or making moves these days, our StarBridge Advisors team of experienced CIOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, CTOs, and CISOs is ready to assist organizations with interim leaders to bridge the gap just as I have done at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Related Posts:
Bridging the gap with an interim leader
Interim management is different
Get started by asking the right questions
Ensuring smooth leadership transitions